What a Notice of Intent to Litigate Means in Florida

A notice of intent to litigate in Florida is a pre-suit dispute notice used for a residential or commercial property insurance claim. It tells the Florida Department of Financial Services and the insurer that a claimant intends to file a lawsuit under the policy. It does not decide whether the claimant or insurer is right.

This distinction matters when reading the public data. A filed notice is not a finding of wrongdoing, a verdict, or proof that an insurer acted improperly. It is one step in a dispute process created by Florida law.

What the notice is

Section 627.70152, Florida Statutes, describes the notice as a condition that a claimant must satisfy before filing a suit under a property insurance policy. The statute applies to suits arising under residential and commercial property insurance policies, including policies issued by eligible surplus lines insurers. Statutory text was retrieved on 2026-09-08.

The notice is filed with the Florida Department of Financial Services on a department form. The DFS Property Insurance Intent to Initiate Litigation portal says the Chief Financial Officer receives the notice and transmits it to the insurer. The portal also says DFS does not involve itself in litigation filed under the statute.

That limited administrative role helps explain the record correctly. Acceptance into the portal means a notice was submitted through the statutory process. It does not mean DFS investigated the allegations, agreed with them, or ruled against the insurer.

Who files one, and when

The statute defines a claimant for this process as an insured who is filing suit under a residential or commercial property insurance policy. It also recognizes that an attorney or another representative may provide the notice. If a representative files it, the notice must state that a copy was provided to the claimant.

The filing occurs before suit, after the insurer has made a coverage determination. The notice must identify the alleged acts or omissions giving rise to the proposed suit. Depending on the kind of dispute described, the statute calls for other information such as an estimate of damages, a presuit settlement demand, or a disputed amount. Those are statements made as part of a pre-suit dispute. They are not adjudicated facts.

This article does not describe the statutory timing periods or what an insurer must do in response. Anyone relying on the procedure should read the current statute and the DFS portal rather than treat an aggregate-data explainer as procedural guidance.

What the notice does not decide

A notice does not establish that an insurer denied coverage incorrectly, paid too little, caused a delay, or violated any law. It does not establish the amount owed under a policy. It also does not show how a later lawsuit ended, or even that a lawsuit was filed.

The published data includes 277,081 notices from 2021-07-01 through 2026-09-07, excluding 10,970 notices marked withdrawn. Those are counts of pre-suit dispute notices, not findings of wrongdoing, verdicts, or proof of improper conduct.

Withdrawal should also be read narrowly. It means a filed notice was pulled back. The portal data alone does not establish why. Insurer Scorecard excludes withdrawn notices from headline counts so the displayed total and the carrier shares use the same inclusion rule.

When carriers are compared, raw notice counts correlate with carrier size because companies with more policyholders and claims have more opportunities for disputes. A carrier's raw count should therefore be read alongside its share of all included notices. Neither measure adjusts for policies in force or claim volume. See what the dispute data shows on the scorecard, rather than treating a count as a quality grade.

How it differs from a civil remedy notice

A property insurance notice of intent to litigate under section 627.70152 is not the same filing as a civil remedy notice under section 624.155, Florida Statutes. Statutory text was retrieved on 2026-09-08.

The property notice concerns a proposed suit arising under a property insurance policy. A civil remedy notice serves as a condition precedent to an action under section 624.155 and must identify, with specificity, information about an alleged statutory violation. The two notices arise under different statutes, use different forms and serve different legal purposes.

The terms should not be used interchangeably. The Insurer Scorecard dataset covers property insurance notices of intent to initiate litigation from the DFS PIITIL portal. It is not a count of civil remedy notices.

What is in the public record, and what is not

The DFS portal warns that information submitted with a property insurance notice is a public record and may be displayed for public review. Portal records can contain personal and claim-level fields, including a claimant's name, street address, city, ZIP code, email address, policy number, and claim number. They can also contain insurer information and the filer-provided description of alleged acts or omissions.

Insurer Scorecard does not publish claimant names, street addresses, email addresses, policy numbers, or claim numbers. Although the portal record contains claimant city and ZIP, the site publishes location at county level only. County is derived from claimant ZIP for aggregation.

The alleged-acts text supports limited, rules-based grouping. The published category keys are `denial`, `underpayment`, `delay`, and `other`. The published damage keys are `hurricane-wind`, `water`, `roof`, `mold`, `fire`, `theft`, and `other`. The `other` key includes text that the rules do not classify.

These labels describe what can be derived from filer-provided notice text. They do not verify an allegation or determine coverage, fault, damages, case status, or outcome.

How we aggregate these notices

Insurer Scorecard aggregates the DFS PIITIL records by insurer, filing month, county, damage type, and dispute category. All headline counts exclude notices marked withdrawn. The statewide publication begins with filings dated 2021-07-01 and is current through 2026-09-07 as of 2026-09-07.

Damage types and dispute categories are assigned through deterministic keyword rules applied to the alleged-acts text. Unmatched text stays in the `other` group rather than being forced into a more specific label. The process is described on the methodology page.

Carrier comparisons show both raw notices and share of included notices because raw counts correlate with carrier size. A filed notice is a pre-suit dispute record, not a finding of wrongdoing, a verdict, or proof that an insurer acted improperly. The data does not currently normalize results by policies in force or number of claims.

Use the scorecard to examine what the dispute data shows, then use the official statute and DFS portal for the governing public materials.

An NOI is a pre-suit dispute notice under section 627.70152, Florida Statutes. It is not a finding of wrongdoing, a verdict, or proof that an insurer acted improperly.

This article is general information, not legal or insurance advice.